Chapter 242: Sifting and Sorting, Discarding the False to Preserve the True

Beside Wuying Hall, beneath the eaves of a row of recently swept-out duty rooms, several young eunuchs were on tiptoe, hanging a brand-new plaque. On the plaque was a line of large characters.

"Northern Zhili New Policies Command Center."

Anyone with a discerning eye could tell at a glance from the handwriting that this was, once again, the personal calligraphy of the reigning Son of Heaven.

Since his ascension to the throne, this young new sovereign, apart from his many heart-stirring and unfathomable methods, had another quirk that left many high officials deeply unsettled.

Namely, an extreme passion for inventing new words and new concepts.

From "interview" to "alignment meeting," and now to "Northern Zhili New Policies Command Center."

And from "learn by doing, do by learning" to slogans like "Don't rush, but be sure to be fast," along with many other speaking and document styles that diverged greatly from the current literary fashion.

By now, when an official from the provinces was about to enter the capital, his very first task was to seek out a colleague in the capital and first copy out a volume of the New Policies Lexicon.

The booksellers at Zhengyang Gate absolutely dared not print this little booklet, for although its contents were called a lexicon, eight or nine out of every ten entries came from the imperial edicts.

Zhu Youjian, who commanded the two great information channels of the Factory Guard and the interviews, was naturally aware of this trend.

Monitoring the cultural trends of the capital was, after all, the Factory Guard's top priority!

Yet not only did he not rein it in, not only did he not show restraint, he grew even more unbridled.

All manner of new words, new concepts, and new slogans continued to flow ceaselessly from the Hall of Earnest Reflection in the Western Park out to the entire court and bureaucracy.

Because this, in itself, was a method.

A method that was beneficial without being costly, yet extraordinarily effective.

Zhu Youjian had perceived the advantages of this trend almost at once.

These new words and new phrases, though not yet a transformation on the level of "new thought," were already a kind of "new atmosphere." No need to raise salaries, grant leave, or promise promotions.

Merely inventing a few "cant terms" understood only by a certain group could forge a spiritual barrier, imperceptibly and continuously strengthening the cohesion of the New Policies faction while radiating a unique power of attraction outward.

Utterly absurd, yet perfectly reasonable.

At times, Zhu Youjian would even speculate with a touch of malice: was the underlying logic of the cant used by those later-era internet giants the same? But more importantly, this was, in this time and space, one of the very few ways to soothe his lonely soul.

In his own way, he was always striving to make this era adapt to him, and not the other way around.

And Zhang Tongchang, Duke of Xingye, was one of the latest batch to experience the "new words" firsthand.

A few days ago, during a conversation with his granduncle Zhang Maoxiu, he had clearly been somewhat overconfident.

In the eyes of the Yongchang Emperor, attitude and ability were both indispensable.

Zhang Tongchang's attitude was indeed correct, even correct to the point of fervor, but his ability clearly still needed tempering.

And so, after an interview that was somewhat gentle yet left an exceptionally deep impression, Zhang Tongchang, Duke of Xingye, received his first assignment after being enfeoffed — a secretariat intern, under Qi Xinxiao, leader of the Northern Zhili New Policies Group.

The practice of internship had existed in the Great Ming since ancient times.

There was the probationary appointment and probationary post system for regular officials; for instance, the functionaries of the Northern Zhili New Policies had a three-month probationary period.

There was the administrative observation system for newly minted jinshi; those interning at the Hanlin Academy were called Hanlin Bachelors, and those assigned to the Six Ministries and Nine Chief Offices were called observing jinshi.

And for Imperial Academy students, after a certain number of years of study, the outstanding ones would also be assigned to various departments for internship, called "practical-training students." Yet the Yongchang Emperor, ignoring so many existing terms, insisted on inventing the concept of the "intern."

The official explanation took the meaning of "practical affairs" and "practice."

As for the true origin in His Majesty the Emperor's heart, no second person in this time and space would ever know it.

History stretches on and on; the term "intern" would likely be forever bound tightly to this Yongchang New Policies.

And alongside Zhang Tongchang, Duke of Xingye, becoming interns in the same cohort were many other people.

For example, the thirty-three civil shepherds from among the Mounted Attendants selected by the Duke of Ding from the nobility.

And for another example, some clever young eunuchs chosen from the Inner Palace School of the Directorate of Ceremonial.

Among these, naturally, were Wang Cheng'en and Fang Zhenghua, whom Gao Shiming of the Directorate of Ceremonial had been keeping his eye on all along.

On the palace road, Wang Cheng'en and Fang Zhenghua, their noses red from the cold, each held a tall stack of dossiers, trudging forward against the biting wind. The wind was fierce today, whipping their robes with a sharp, snapping sound.

The two had no choice but to cradle the bottom of the dossiers with one hand while the other hand pressed firmly on the topmost layer, lest the thin pages be sent flying in all directions. Fortunately, they wore newly issued cotton-padded robes, and on their heads were the first batch of ear-warmers produced by the palace women under Empress Zhou's direction, so they did not feel the cold.

Hurrying along like this, fine beads of sweat instead seeped out at their temples.

Fang Zhenghua's face, however, was flushed red not from heat, but from excitement.

He lowered his voice, yet that surge of agitation could not be suppressed at all.

"Cheng'en, did you hear that? Just now at the Ministry of Personnel, that Vice Minister called me 'Eunuch Fang'! Hahaha!"

"Eunuch Fang! Eunuch Fang! Hahaha! I, your Grandpa Fang, have finally made it! Hahaha!"

Wang Cheng'en merely smiled, said nothing in reply, and kept walking forward with his head down.

After a few steps, unable to hold the words in his heart any longer, he opened his mouth and asked.

"Are we going to be helping out here all month?"

Fang Zhenghua shot him a sidelong glance.

"What, you're turning your nose up at such a fine assignment?"

"This is clearly a shortcut straight to the heavens! Look at Du Xun — to get selected, how many gifts did he send the supervising eunuch, how much bootlicking did he do?" Fang Zhenghua gave a sly chuckle, his tone dripping with disdain.

"What use was any of it! The Inner Palace School picked ten people in the end, and the two of us, without doing a thing, got chosen all the same!"

"What is this? This is real ability!"

At this point, he could no longer hold back and burst out laughing: "Ability that needs no backdoor connections, haha— Ah!"

A fierce gust of wind suddenly blasted in; the top sheets of the dossiers in his hands were instantly flipped up, startling a cry out of him. He hurriedly turned sideways and used his whole body to press down, barely keeping the documents from flying out of his grasp.

This square was utterly exposed; if they really got blown away, he probably wouldn't be able to recover them in a whole day.

And then, for all he knew, he'd have to go right back where he came from.

The false alarm left Fang Zhenghua drenched in cold sweat, and his laughter came to an abrupt halt.

But before long, he was chuckling again, already daydreaming about promotions after the internship period.

Wang Cheng'en was honest by nature and had no wish to spoil Fang Zhenghua's good mood.

Yet in his heart, that unasked question kept circling.

Coming here to help every day this month, I've fallen behind on my Inner Palace School coursework — what am I going to do about the end-of-month evaluation?

If the evaluation goes poorly, there won't be any meat in next month's meal allowance... Wang Cheng'en sighed softly to himself, thinking that Grandpa Fang was truly foolishly naive.

Do badly on the exam, and there's no meat to eat.

He can't even figure out something that simple.

Never mind — if I ever truly rise to wealth and rank in the future, I must give him a proper helping hand.

Otherwise, someone as dim as him is bound to end up in miserable straits — might not even get meat to eat.

The two walked on, Fang Zhenghua chattering away as usual while Wang Cheng'en answered with an occasional word or two, and soon the duty office with its plaque reading "Northern Zhili New Governance Command Post" came distantly into view.

Wang Cheng'en shouldered the wooden door open, and a wave of clamorous heat, mingled with the scent of ink and sweat, rushed straight at them.

The scene inside could only be called seething chaos.

"Where are the Zunhua County documents?! Doesn't the register say there are six in total?!"

"Why are there only five here?! The register — who has the register? Find it, quick — figure out which one is missing!"

A green-robed official was shouting at the top of his lungs, the corners of his mouth covered in fever blisters, clearly burning with frantic urgency.

In a corner, Zhang Tongchang, Duke of Xing, looked up, his head drenched in sweat, and shouted back: "Here with me! Here with me! It's the one from Li Yingming, Bureau Secretary of the Ministry of Personnel — I'm cutting and copying the contents now, I'll submit it right away!"

The green-robed official urged him on without the slightest courtesy: "Hurry it up! The Shuntian Prefecture files must all be reviewed and assessed before noon! There are still over a dozen counties after that!"

The grand Duke of Xing, who drew two thousand piculs of grain in stipend and had been personally enfeoffed by His Majesty's imperial brush as "Duke of Xing Who Supports the State, Assists the Fortunes, and Upholds Rectitude as a Civil Minister," faced a mere seventh-rank official and dared not let out so much as a fart, immediately burying his head again, his brush flying.

Wang Cheng'en's gaze swept across the room.

From the roof beam, a huge red banner hung straight down, on it a line of large characters bristling with murderous drive.

"Thirty days of all-out effort — success is forged this very day."

On the walls all around, giant wooden boards had been nailed up in a row, and on the boards thick stiff paper had been pasted.

The eight prefectures and more than one hundred counties and subprefectures under Northern Zhili were each laid out in turn.

Under the name of each county and subprefecture, enormous tables had been drawn in ink, listing numerous categories: acreage, population, tax revenues, key personnel, performance-assessment items, and more.

But the tables were not filled in with a brush — instead, iron pins had been used to densely prick up countless little paper slips.

Wang Cheng'en and Fang Zhenghua had been reassigned here to help for several days and were long since inured to the sight.

Clutching their files, the two carefully skirted around the marquises, earls, mounted attendants-in-ordinary, and secretaries dashing back and forth across the room, and made their way to a large desk at the very center.

Behind the desk, a green-robed official was writing furiously, head down.

"Team Leader Qi," Fang Zhenghua said, placing the stacks of files onto the desk by category, "a new batch of files has arrived."

Pointing at the documents on the desk, he said: "Shunyi, Huairou, and Miyun in Shuntian Prefecture are these three piles on the left. Qingyuan, Mancheng, Ansu, Dingxing, and Xincheng in Baoding Prefecture are these piles on the right."

Qi Xinxiao, addressed as "Team Leader Qi," finally looked up.

He glanced back at the boards on the walls and the crowd in the hall, and the overall work progress flowed swiftly through his mind.

He drew a deep breath and, in a hoarse voice, shouted out a string of names with all his might.

"Xu Yunzhen! Li Guozhen! Ye Shireng! Li Shizhong... all of you, get over here!"

The room was so noisy that even after calling for quite a while, Xu Yunzhen, son of the Duke of Ding, seemed not to have heard.

Qi Xinxiao's brow furrowed. He abruptly rose, strode over to a desk, grabbed Xu Yunzhen — who was still bent over his copying — by the back of his collar, and hauled him over.

Once everyone had assembled, he began issuing orders.

"Xu Yunzhen, you take Shunyi!"

"Li Guozhen, you take Huairou!"

"Ye Shireng..."

In a few swift strokes he had all the tasks assigned, and with a vigorous wave of his hand:

"Quick, quick, quick! Split up and get to it!"

At these words, the crowd scattered like birds and beasts, each dashing off to their own battlefield.

Wang Cheng'en and Fang Zhenghua, without waiting to be told, each returned to their places and rejoined their own teams.

Wang Cheng'en was in Xu Yunzhen's team.

"Attendant Xu, I..."

Without looking up, Xu Yunzhen cut him off at a rapid-fire clip: "Skip the chatter — the pile on the far left is yours. Quick, quick, quick, get moving!" Wang Cheng'en said nothing in reply, sat down on the bench, and obediently began cutting up the documents.

"Cutting," as it was called, meant copying out the key data and key content from each official document onto little paper slips.

After the multiple documents for each county were cut, they were first submitted to the secretaries of the Northern Zhili New Governance Group for review.

They would compare the various documents — if there were no discrepancies, it passed; if there were problems, it was forwarded to Team Leader Qi Xinxiao for a decision.

On the other side, Qi Xinxiao, having finished assigning tasks, sat back down behind his desk and studied several documents for a while.

At last, he stood up and walked over to the table labeled "Zhending County, Zhending Prefecture, Shuntian Prefecture."

In the Northern Zhili New Governance, the appointment of county magistrates was the most critical priority, and its regulatory rigor far exceeded anything in the past.

The first hurdle, jointly driven by the Ministry of Personnel and the Censorate, was this:

Past tax-collection performance and official reputation would be assessed. Those who failed to qualify would be removed from their posts and reassigned elsewhere. In serious cases, they would even be summarily dismissed, never to be employed again. Among these criteria, there was even an unspoken line — anyone over sixty years of age was rejected across the board.

This single round alone screened out more than thirty men.

The resulting vacancies were filled by the Ministry of Personnel, selecting the best from the capable county magistrates identified in the earlier rounds of evaluation.

Furthermore, because the New Governance had closed its doors, the number of slots had narrowed.

Among the younger officials who had reacted too slowly earlier on, or had held back and watched too long, and consequently failed to squeeze into the New Governance, many now volunteered of their own accord, willing to be sent out as county magistrates in hopes of securing a place in the New Governance.

Among these, there were even cases of men holding the rank of sixth-grade Bureau Secretary seeking a seventh-grade county magistrate post.

This was nothing short of turning heaven and earth upside down!

Of course, the position of county magistrate was not something one could simply obtain by trading a higher rank for a lower one.

In the actual selection process, practical local administrative experience was an absolute, non-negotiable hard requirement, and so the petitions of many officials proved futile in the end. Only a handful of lucky ones barely managed to seize this final chance and squeeze their way into the New Governance ranks.

But passing the personnel review was only the first hurdle — the document review was even more exacting.

This was precisely what the Northern Metropolitan Command was now carrying out. After the local County Magistrate submitted his official report, the Command would consult the roster of officials and require capital officials who were native to that locality or had once served there to submit their own local-affairs reports, for cross-comparison.

If fewer than five such officials could be found, they would select qualified persons from among the juren and even the Embroidered Uniform Guard to make up the number.

The items required on the local-affairs report were even more minutely detailed:

For arable acreage, population count, and tax revenue — these three items the Ministry of Revenue would append the original quota figures from the current Yellow Registers, while each person was required to fill in their own estimated true figures.

Local strongmen, great landlords, and deeply entrenched families of petty functionaries were to be entered under the "Key Persons" section.

In addition, there were "Supplementary Assessment Items" — matters requiring focused attention beyond the three fundamentals of surveying acreage, clarifying population, and straightening out tax revenues. Depending on the locality, these might be roving bandits, rampant salt-smuggling, unruly grain-transport laborers, or even the White Lotus sect operating in secret. Once this entire combination of measures was brought to bear, a few reports laid side by side and cross-referenced would expose the abuses of an entire county as if laid bare under the blazing sun, every last detail revealed.

Qi Xinxiao's gaze swept back and forth across the many slips of paper pinned with fine needles to the wooden board for Zhending County.

After comparing them repeatedly several times over, a cold, icy smile finally surfaced on his face.

There was indeed a problem!

He raised his brush, dabbed an ink dot on the problematic slip in one of the records, and marked it.

Zhending Subprefecture had only five reports. The other four records all mentioned the Wu family under Key Persons.

That is to say, the family of Wu Guozhen, who had risen to become Prefect of Henan Subprefecture, was the foremost powerful landlord clan in Zhending County.

Yet this one report, submitted by a Zhending-native juren, made no mention whatsoever of the Wu family.

Qi Xinxiao gave a cold snort inwardly.

What is the meaning of this? You are a native of Zhending — how could you possibly not know of the Wu family?!

A clan that has produced a major official like a Prefect — in its home county, which one does not possess a hundred li of contiguous land and live in ostentatious luxury? Why are you covering this up?

Absolutely suspicious!

His eyes shifted to another spot.

Of the five reports, three explicitly mentioned that the local Constable was a "Key Person" — his family had been petty functionaries for generations, deeply entrenched in the county yamen, and even appeared to be in collusion with the bandits outside the city walls.

So why did the other two reports fail to mention this as well? Did they truly not know, or were they pretending not to know?

Also suspicious! All of it is suspicious!

Qi Xinxiao returned to his desk, his face as dark as water. He picked up his brush and began writing rapidly in a personal memorial, his phrasing utterly unsparing.

"Five reports from Zhending County. First: that written by Zhao Duan, juren, second-place in the Shuntian Provincial Examination of the seventh year of Tianqi, conceals the Wu family — the circumstances are suspect and warrant interrogation!"

"Second: the reports written by juren Zhao Chuan and Embroidered Uniform Guard Centurion Zhou Quan both fail to mention the Constable's clan — warrant interrogation!"

These discovered problems would be compiled once every two-hour period, then sent together to the Committee, where Chief Grand Secretary Huang Liji would take the lead in issuing formal demands for explanation to those with problems, requiring them to make corrections.

If, after repeated reprimands, they still refused to amend or were unable to amend, they would be judged as "obstructing the New Policies out of selfishness and negligence," with the maximum penalty being "three additional green marks."

As for...

If anyone dared to collude and conspire on this matter, fobbing off the reports with perfunctory fabrications —

Those holding office would be dismissed and permanently barred from appointment!

Juren would be stripped of their degree, forbidden to sit the examinations for life!

Members of the Embroidered Uniform Guard would be stripped of rank and dispatched at once to the nearest frontier for penal military service!

These measures were all spelled out plainly in the detailed provisions of the "Implementation Measures for the Rollout of the New Policies in the Northern Metropolitan Region."

To quote the words of the Sage Sovereign in the "New Policies Discourse":

Telling the truth is for solving problems. Not telling the truth — that in itself is a problem! And since it is a problem, then it ought to be solved! The logic locked link by link, absolutely murderous in its ferocity! Thus, while people might, due to limited ability or obstructed vision, equivocate or make the odd error on certain information, absolutely no one dared to engage in this sort of private collusion that utterly defied the sovereign.

As Qi Xinxiao wrote furiously, the secretary assigned to Shuntian Prefecture came hurrying over again.

"Section Chief Qi, the reports from Zhuo Subprefecture here also seem not to match up. Three mention the former Grand Secretary Feng Quan, but the other two make no mention of him." Qi Xinxiao nodded. "Very well, let me take a look."

The secretary gave a slight bow, turned, and went back to reviewing the other results.

Qi Xinxiao picked up those several reports on Zhuo Subprefecture and bent his head to compare them once more.

He had been reading for only a moment when the fire rekindled in his eyes.

"Such nerve! With the Sage Sovereign looking on from above, you still dare to shield and protect like this! Black crows — black crows indeed! Destined to be swept into the rubbish heap!" He cursed bitterly twice, then could not suppress a dry cough. He hurriedly picked up his cup of warm water and gulped a mouthful; only then did the hoarseness ease slightly.

Qi Xinxiao turned and went to the wall belonging to Zhuo Subprefecture under Shuntian Prefecture to make his notations.

Once he had finished marking, he spread open a memorial and wrote down every suspicious point, one by one.

Before him, the great doors opened and shut as junior eunuchs shuttled back and forth. One batch of documents was sent to the Committee demanding accountability; another batch, the county reports gradually collected and assembled from the Six Ministries and the Nine Chief Ministers, was delivered in succession.

The Command was a scene of bustling chaos and feverish energy, but the slips of paper on every wall grew ever more numerous, ever more dense.

All the way until the hour of Shen — theoretically time to leave duty.

Yet inside the Command, the clamor of voices still surged.

People lit candles and pressed on with the work at full tilt.

By the hour of You, junior eunuchs came pushing wooden carts, delivering box after box of evening meals.

No one dared eat at their desks for fear of soiling the case files, so they simply abandoned all decorum — squatting or standing, they hastily shovelled down their food, then plunged back into the furious labor. It was not until the first quarter of the hour of Xu that the candle flames in the Command were finally extinguished, and the men, dragging their exhausted bodies, dispersed.

A few junior eunuchs entered last, checking one by one that every candle was fully out, before pulling the heavy wooden doors shut and locking them. The Command was plunged at once into deep shadow, utterly silent.

All the clamor, the roaring, the arguments, and the frantic rushing of the daylight hours seemed swallowed whole by this darkness.

A moment later, cold, clear moonlight filtered through the high window lattices, spilling into the room and casting dappled light and shadow across the floor and desks. The light and shadow shifted slowly with time, finally falling upon those enormous wooden board walls.

The moonlight illuminated the dense thicket of tiny slips pinned there with iron needles, as if draping the wall in a coat of silver frost.

A name emerged under the moonlight.

"Zhending County Constable — Luo Sanlu."

No, not just one name.

The moonlight flowed on like water, gliding slowly past, illuminating more names.

"Qingyun County Revenue Office Clerk, Cheng Wenguang."

"Handan County Bandit Chief, 'Guoshanfeng.'"

"Zhang Youcai, a local strongman from Laoting County."

Name after name, line after line of annotations.

They were petty functionaries, clerical aides, local strongmen — even bandits who ruled the hills as their own kings. In any dynasty before this, such men had lurked in the deepest recesses of the empire's body, shadows the court's decrees could never reach. They were the true masters of the localities, the vague "unruly subjects" and "crafty, slippery sorts" in the eyes of the Emperor and the court.

But now, in this very room, amid this thunderous review of official documents —

for the first time, they had been dragged out of those shadows with such clarity, such systematic precision, and turned into concrete names, nailed to this wall, nailed to the very nerve center of the empire.

High above the ninth heaven, the scarred and wounded true dragon slowly opened its eyes.

Good. I see you now!

Zhang Tongchang, Duke of Xing, lived near the western part of the city along with Xu Yunzhen, son of the Duke of Ding, and Li Guozhen, son of the Earl of Xiangcheng. Close in age, the three had grown accustomed to traveling together these past few days.

The night was deep. A single lantern swayed in the icy night wind, illuminating three young faces, each distinct from the others.

"If the state always handled affairs like this, how could it ever have come to this! How could it ever have come to this!"

Zhang Tongchang spoke first, his expression still fervent, clearly still immersed in the vibrant scenes of the day. He sighed with heartfelt admiration. "So many colleagues, all focused solely on getting things done, with no thought of factional strife — how… how magnificent!"

Xu Yunzhen glanced at Li Guozhen, smiled and nodded, but did not rush to speak.

Li Guozhen understood. Quietly, he opened a new thread of conversation.

"The Duke of Xing is quite right. The atmosphere today was indeed utterly different from the usual yamen. But to say there was no factional strife — that may not be so." Zhang Tongchang started, puzzled. "Why do you say that? From what I saw today, this new policy's methods put substance first in every respect, truth first. Every dismissal, every mark of approval, stemmed from actual flaws in the documents, or even deliberate concealment. How can that be called factional strife?"

Only then did Xu Yunzhen chime in, smiling. "What Brother Guozhen means, I think, is not about matters within the Northern Zhili Command?"

Li Guozhen laughed. "Exactly. My father, the Earl of Xiangcheng, has taken up affairs in the Capital Camps and has some dealings in the Secretariat, so he's learned a few secrets outsiders don't know. Would my two elder brothers care to hear them?"

Gossip has stirred hearts since ancient times. Zhang Tongchang and Xu Yunzhen immediately slowed their pace and looked over together.

Li Guozhen cleared his throat, first waving the servants following behind far away, then lowered his voice. "Do you two know Yuan Jixian? The new favorite in the Secretariat who, because of that Liaodong Military Commissioner document affair, was put in charge of both the Liaodong Pay Audit Team and the Shaanxi Team at the same time?"

Both men nodded.

"As of yesterday, he no longer is," Li Guozhen said. "Now he's only responsible for the Liaodong pay audit. Do you know why?"

At this, the two men stopped walking altogether.

Zhang Tongchang pressed him. "Why?"

Xu Yunzhen, a smile on his face, said, "Brother, don't keep us in suspense!"

Li Guozhen laughed heartily. "Well, someone in the Secretariat submitted a memorial, arguing that duties should be assigned exclusively. How could Yuan Jixian handle two critical tasks at once, with no connection between them, and do either well? Besides, the Liaodong pay audit would eventually require him to go to the Liaodong garrison — wouldn't that hold up the Shaanxi team's progress?"

"As soon as that memorial went up, a chorus of voices in the Secretariat rose in support. His Majesty summoned a few people for a chat, then made the decision: Yuan Jixian would lead only the Liaodong pay audit, and the Shaanxi matter would be handed to Ma Maocai, who had just returned from Shaanxi."

Zhang Tongchang was even more puzzled. "That reasoning is perfectly sound. How is that factional strife?"

Xu Yunzhen shot Li Guozhen a glance, then fed him the next line. "I too thought it unremarkable, but hearing you say that, Brother — could there be something fishy about it?"

Li Guozhen smiled. "Exactly. The reasoning is sound, but the problem is this: the man who submitted the memorial was Yao Ximeng, who only recently entered the Secretariat. And the man he recommended to take over the Shaanxi affairs was Chen Renxi — who entered the Secretariat at the exact same time as he did."

Only then did Zhang Tongchang see the light. "This is… a scramble for work!"

Xu Yunzhen picked up the thread.

"Isn't it just that? As His Majesty says, to accomplish anything, you need resources — it's impossible not to contend. But today I realized it's not just a struggle between the new policies and the old. Within the new policies themselves, how could there not be contention?"

He looked at Zhang Tongchang and said,

"The gentleman is harmonious but not conformist; the petty man is conformist but not harmonious. Within this new policy today, what they contend for is not personal pride, but the authority to get things done. What they contend for is not private gain, but the order of priorities in reviving the nation. This is not factional strife — it is 'the contention of gentlemen.'"

Li Guozhen also smiled. "The Duke of Xing has only just been enfeoffed; it seems he's not yet accustomed to officialdom. We've all grown familiar with the ways of the world here in the capital — we ought to visit one another more often in the future."

Zhang Tongchang was about to smile and agree, but looking at their two smiling faces, something suddenly dawned on him.

But he let nothing show on his face. He paused only a moment, then smiled. "Of course, of course. I've only just begun to work and know very little. In the future, I'll certainly need to rely heavily on my two elder brothers."

The three of them chatted and laughed as they continued on their way home. Only when they reached a fork in the road did they each turn back toward their own residences.

Holding his lantern, Zhang Tongchang walked with his household servant along the silent street.

After walking a while, he suddenly stopped, turned, and gazed back at the road behind him, now swallowed by darkness.

Without the slightest warning, that exchange between sovereign and subject during his audience with His Majesty flashed through his mind.

"Duke of Xing, do you know what I fear most?"

Naive at the time, he had offered answer after answer — from the failure of the new policies to official corruption — he said them all.

In the end, he even dared to mention vassal kings rebelling, but the new sovereign shook his head at every one.

The Son of Heaven gave a quiet sigh and said,

"What I fear most is being shrouded in falsehood."

"Everyone says the new policies are good, everyone says the court is filled with upright men. But if it goes on being this good all the way to the end, and the final result is the common people rising in revolt and border barbarians invading — what then? When the enemy is at the city walls, only then would I learn the truth. What use would it be then?"

"Duke of Xing, you are nineteen this year — by reckoning, two years my senior."

"Can I trust you? The way Emperor Zhaolie of Han trusted Marquis Wu of Zhuge?"

"In this life, for all your days, never, ever deceive me. No matter how terrible, how wretched the matter, you must always tell me."

"Will you?"

He couldn't withstand it!

The young Zhang Tongchang simply could not withstand it!

Now, he could no longer recall at all how he had answered in that moment.

His entire memory stopped at His Majesty's words, "Will you?"

Stopped at His Majesty's gentle yet earnest eyes. Beyond that, everything was a complete blank.

But what else could he have answered?

In the name of his great-grandfather, Zhang of Jiangling, in the name of the Zhang family — what else could he have answered?

The servant beside him, seeing him stop and look back, asked in confusion, "My Lord Duke, what is the matter?"

Zhang Tongchang shook his head, withdrew his gaze, and smiled. "Nothing."

"Only that today I've come to realize — getting things done is no easy thing!"

The servant immediately chimed in: "Exactly! On duty at the hour of the rabbit, and not off until the hour of the dog — a full six double-hours of duty in a single day. In all the dynasties past and present, where is the sense in such toil and drudgery?"

Zhang Tongchang could not help shaking his head slightly. What he had spoken of was plainly the people's hearts — how could it be a mere matter of bodily fatigue?

But there was no need to explain too much to this household servant. Zhang Tongchang simply strode forward, walking on ahead.

Ahead, at the gate of the Lingji Palace, those two lanterns were already within sight.

Attached is the "Worldly Sentiment Survey and Analysis Table" from the Northern Metropolitan Region New Policies Command — just get a rough sense of it.

The real table will be much larger and far more detailed than this.